The time is is coming soon for the Cleveland Baseball Club to make a handful of roster changes.
The theme of the 2021 season for the Cleveland Baseball Club has been transition. Continuing to compete while turning over the roster and finding out about some of their younger players. Well, the time is coming to turn the roster over yet again and find out about some more guys. The team is overachieving record wise and is not really a threat to make a postseason run. With injuries starting to pile up it is best to figure out what the team has in two of the often mentioned options in the minors at the expense of two others on the major league roster.
Those two on the current roster? Jake Bauers and Yu Chang. The two guys in the minors? Bobby Bradley and Daniel Johnson.
Bauers simply has not developed and is just brutal to watch at the plate. Some of that can be due to Bauers not living up to expectations after being acquired from Tampa prior to 2019. Although some of that falls on the organization as they simply have a hard time developing hitters for some time now. Bauers is slashing .198/.287/.292/.579 with a 63 WRC+ on the year, this is just not acceptable production and cannot be justified to keep getting playing time. As far as Chang goes he is nothing more than a bench player. There was some optimisms from certain sections of the fanbase that he could be something more, but he just isn’t really a player that should get regular playing time. Considering the lack of production and an injury to a key offensive player (Franmil Reyes), Cleveland needs players who can play on a regular basis. This just appears to be the perfect time to find out more about some of their players currently in the minors.
And that brings us to Bobby Bradley and Daniel Johnson. Many have been clamoring for them to replace a handful of players on the current roster for quite some time. To the dismay of many they have had to wait their turn, mostly to sort some things out with guys like Jake Bauers. The time has come for them to get their shot at being everyday players so the team can figure out what they are. There are still questions and concerns about if they are able to play at the major league level. Sure, both Bradley and Johnson could struggle as well, but is time to turn the page with Bauers and Chang by opting to go with Bradley and Johnson.
At the end of the day it is about determining whether or not some of these fringe type players can be regular contributors. It does not appear that is the case with Bauers and Chang, which is why going through this process with Bradley and Johnson should begin sooner rather than later. In reality it is more than possible that the true answers for Cleveland are in the next group of players yet to be called up. That is when things should get a bit more exciting down on the corner of Carnegie and Ontario.
